


Like a Deer in the Firelights

by walking_tornado



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Centaurs, Fairies, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 08:44:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3202976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walking_tornado/pseuds/walking_tornado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen's only plan is to go down fighting, and then he meets Jared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Deer in the Firelights

**Author's Note:**

> I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to pinch hit for machidieles' lovely J2 forest scene. If you haven't already, please check out the artwork (http://machidieles.livejournal.com/3278.html) and leave her feedback. Many thanks to amberdreams for the beta: it is greatly appreciated! All mistakes are mine. Thanks also to the hardworking mods of spn_reversebang. Written for the 2014/15 SPN_reversebang.
> 
> Disclaimer: Fiction. Real people's names and likenesses have been used without permission, and their depiction in no way reflects reality. No offence is intended, and no money is being made.

## 

Like a Deer in the Firelights

Jensen dug the floppy toe of his hiking boots into the ground and contemplated the impression it left in the overgrown dirt road. He watched the impression slowly fill with water. He needed new boots; his feet were going to be soaked within minutes—by the end of the day they'd definitely be pruned. He adjusted the strap of his backpack so that it didn't jar his side quite so much and turned around. The motion pulled at barely healed wounds and he grimaced. 

"Don't got all day!" he yelled. Two people exited one of the cabins and walked towards him. Two. There were supposed to have been four. 

Without waiting for them to reach him, Jensen strode ahead to the wooden gate. As he swung the gate open, his eyes caught on the side of the community barn. There was nothing special about the flat, weathered expanse. Yet every time he looked at it, he remembered another flat graffiti-covered surface (a warehouse that time, not a barn) where "At least no zombies!" had been spray-painted in purple across a large smiley face. Just some smart-ass kid making his mark on the world--and who was probably now dead--but that fucking smiley face haunted him. No zombies. With everything else creeping out of the shadows, that wasn't much to be celebrating. 

With an impatient sigh, Jensen let the gate swing closed behind him. He leaned against the fence as he waited, and he listened for a hint of what might be lurking for them today. On a sunny day, after a couple solid days of rain, Jensen knew that they wouldn't be the only ones hunting. A shriek from the forest echoed in the still morning and then was abruptly cut off. He couldn't place that particular sound; something new was never good. 

Jensen heard the squelch of footsteps behind him as his companions caught up. 

"Sorry," huffed a blond girl in her early twenties. Her hair was twisted up in a practical, no-nonsense ponytail, and her brown eyes looked up at him beneath slightly skewed glasses that had been patched with duct tape more than once. "My brothers—" she said, but she didn't continue when Jensen turned away from her to raise an eyebrow at the woman beside her. 

"Kim, where are the other two?" Jensen asked, and let Kim's reproachful look bounce off him. 

"Good morning to you too," Kim said, and she passed her fingers through her short-cropped dark hair that stuck out from the red bandana that she always wore. Whatever motivational words had once been on the gym bag she had slung across her shoulders had been worn away, leaving only the faint outline of a barbell and a running woman's silhouette. The tears in her light jacket had been inexpertly mended, but while the handiwork wasn't pretty, he knew it would hold. Kim never did anything half-assed. 

"Alona's. . . The other two are sick," she continued, and they shared a knowing look. 

Fuck. 

Like Kim, Jensen knew that they were likely to blame. The people in this community had chosen to live off the grid long before the plague swept through, when it was still considered eccentric and weird. They had heard reports of the devastation from their cushion of wilderness, but until Jensen and Kim showed up they'd had no contact with anyone since the whole thing began. 

Two people falling sick shortly after Jensen and Kim had dragged their injured selves through the gate . . . he supposed it could be coincidence. Maybe it was just the flu. Jensen looked off in the distance. 

Alona's face was pinched with concern and she had turned to look back at the camp. Jensen knew she'd rather stay with her family. He pressed his lips together. He'd thought she was stronger than that. Weaklings died. 

"Dean, maybe we should—" Kim began. His dead partner's name on her lips jolted Jensen, like it always did. It was the reason he had given her that name instead of his own: a daily reminder not to fuck up again. "Dean?" Kim was too damned observant. 

"No," he said. No change of plan, no offer of condolence, and no show of sympathy to Alona for her possibly dying brothers. That was for a different world. 

"Probably the flu, nothing too serious," Alona was saying, still looking back towards the camp, "but he —" 

"Yeah, whatever. Let's go." With that, Jensen set off at a good pace down the road, leaving the others to follow. 

"God, is he _always_ such an asshole?" Alona's voice, while pitched low, still carried easily, and Jensen suspected it was by design. She couldn't see his scowl as he searched out the trail he and Kim had been using for the last two days. 

"Yeah, he is." Kim didn't even bother with the pretense and her pointed comment was spoken loudly. He couldn't very well object when she spoke the truth. 

* * *

"Okay, I've seen the will-o'-wisp lights, but seriously? Trolls?" Alona walked alongside Kim, and they would pause now and again so Kim could point out tracks and signs to look out for. 

Kim shrugged. "So few people anymore and 'nature hates a vacuum'—or something like that. Just part of the shit that came crawling out to take our place." 

Jensen hated listening to them talk about it, matter-of-fact, accepting. It was good that Kim had opted to take the newbies under her wing because Jensen didn't have the patience to talk to people anymore. Yesterday, the kids' inane prattle made him want to leave them in the forest and let reality, all on its own, blunt their enthusiasm for the hunt. 

Jensen flexed and encountered only soreness from his chewed-up arm and chest. Improved range of motion, no inflammation. Good. That had been the deal: antibiotics to save his life in exchange for teaching them how to handle the monsters that now roamed the world. When he'd regained consciousness, Jensen had told Kim that she'd made a poor bargain—better to have let him die—but she had told him to go fuck himself and get over it. The infection hadn't set in too far, and this group had some medicine to spare. Jensen was sick of pretending gratitude. He had survived because the world hated him, and, after what his partner had sacrificed to save him . . . well, if Jensen was going to die, it wouldn't be by his own hand. 

Stronger now, Jensen was itching to leave. Being around people made him testy.

* * *

"Dean, I'm going to stay." Very possibly the worst words ever spoken. 

Kim looked sideways at him to gauge his reaction. "I'm tired of being on the road," she continued. "These people seem nice, and I like having others to talk with. Conversation—maybe you've heard of it?" Kim added the last part with a grin, and he returned a look heavenward, but conceded her point. 

They had stopped to rest for a few minutes, upwind of the lake to minimize the risk of things finding them by scent. Alona had gone to relieve herself behind a rock outcropping, after reddening and insisting she would be fine on her own. Jensen wondered if something would eat her today, or maybe she'd make it to tomorrow. It was only a matter of time, for her and for the other two wannabe hunters. Only a matter of time for all of them. He wouldn't let himself care anymore; he couldn't. 

Jensen let out a small hiss of breath when he set his pack down with the others, but he didn't think Kim had noticed. While the day had started out okay, the continual tug of the pack as they walked over rough terrain had made the healing injuries painful. 

"You should stay, too," Kim continued, as if it were a real possibility. "You could really make a difference here: help me teach them how to fight against these things —efficiently, not what they're doing now— and help them get prepared for winter. And you'd have time to really heal—oh, don't start! You're moving stiff, I can tell! At least take some time; leave when you're a hundred percent. Don't be stupid." 

Jensen remained impassive and said nothing. Kim threw her hands out in frustration and rolled her eyes, growling through clenched teeth. 

"Argh! Why the hell do I bother!" she said, a loud whisper instead of the yell she would obviously prefer. Even frustrated, she was a pro. Jensen would sorely miss her as a hunting partner. "So your plan is what? Kill 'em until they kill you?" She threw it out facetiously, rhetorical, and did a double take when Jensen's eyes skittered away. Kim tilted her head in concentration as she studied him. Her eyes softened. "Oh, Dean . . ." 

A flash of white from the bushes was Jensen's lifeline and he seized it. He brushed past Kim, bringing up the crossbow, and scrutinized the bushes. They rustled again, and his finger had tensed to squeeze the trigger when he hesitated. He heard Alona's footsteps behind him as she rejoined them. What if one of the other hunters-in-training was feeling better and decided to catch up to them? He gritted his teeth as the bush moved again, but didn't shoot. 

"What do you see?" Alona asked. Jensen was pleased to note that she spoke softly, not in the loud come-eat-me voices that she and her brothers had used their first day. But it still grated on Jensen's nerves. It rang clear in her voice that somehow she hadn't lost that little undercurrent of hope, and Jensen knew it couldn't last. 

"I don't see anything," Alona continued. Jensen's vigilance was rewarded when he caught another flash of a white tail. Jensen knew a deer when he saw one. He grinned and sighted through the crosshairs. He didn't have a clear line of sight since it was mostly obscured by vegetation, so he waited. No sense is ruining a week's suppers through impatience. 

"What is—" Alona began but Kim shushed her. Alona narrowed her eyes in irritation but to Jensen's surprise she didn't object and peered into the forest with the others. It put her up a notch in Jensen's estimation. Maybe Kim was right; she'd said Alona had the right stuff. Jensen hadn't paid that much attention. Something spooked the deer and it bounded off before Jensen found his shot. He scowled. 

He pointed an index finger in the direction the white-tailed deer had gone. He hadn't seen its head before it had disappeared into the bushes and he couldn't tell if it had a rack of antlers, but he figured it was a pretty safe bet—from the back it had looked like a good-sized adult: no yearling would be have haunches that tall. Jensen took up his pack to set off on the deer's trail. 

"I know it's important. But . . . I thought we were going to hunt monsters," Alona said as they fell into step behind him. "You said you would teach us before you left. . ." 

"There's two weeks' worth of meals wandering around within bowshot," Kim told her, as she readied her own crossbow, "and your dad asked us to bring back something if we could. We'll take it down, easy, and then you'll get your monsters later. Trust me, no avoiding it if we tried. And besides," Kim continued. "I'm not sure we will leave. With winter on its way and all." Jensen shot a look backwards and met Kim's steady gaze. 

"Really? That's wonderful!" Alona said. Jensen didn't share her enthusiasm. He'd got into the habit of having someone else around, to take shifts on watch, to be there. 

He turned to continue scanning for the deer's trail, when he saw movement from the corner of his eye. He glanced back and froze just as Alona exclaimed, "Ow!" 

Jensen saw that a little humanoid form, about the size of a dragonfly, but with folded wings, had alighted on her forearm, and its clawed hands and feet pierced her skin where it perched. 

"Oh!" she said, and bent closer for a look. The creature's eyes flashed gold and it skewed up its face in anger. As it leaped forward, aiming its spear at her eye, Jensen's palm swatted it to the ground, and before it could lift itself up, he brought his foot down, crunching it in a spray of blood. Alona looked in horror at the spattered remains. 

"Fairies," he said and, without another word, he and Kim moved as one. He slung his bow back onto his shoulder, and pulled up the ratty old hood of his sweater to protect his neck and ears. Kim fastened her bandana to cover her face and neck. As she turned up the collar of her jacket, Kim glanced at Alona. 

"Fuck," Kim said. "Cover up. They like getting in through ears and noses." Kim pulled down the rolled up sleeves of Alona's light jacket and tugged up the younger woman's hood. "Do it up. Tight," she said. 

"What —?" Alona looked around in confusion as she fastened her hood. 

"It's a swarm," Kim said in a hurried whisper—though Jensen knew, as she did, that if one fairy had found them, the time for hiding had passed. She tapped Alona's pack. "Be ready to ditch this if you need to," she added, "and stay close. Come on." Kim tugged on Alona's arm to move her towards the lake. 

Alona resisted and still stared at the little crushed red blob in confusion. "But it's so tiny—" Two more rose from the bushes. Then a handful more lifted out of the thicket. 

A strong hand grasped her jacket and yanked her backwards. Alona looked up at Jensen in surprise. 

"Think of fairies like intelligent piranhas," he said, and it was probably the longest phrase he'd ever spoken to her. He released her, shoving her ahead of him towards Kim. "They'll only leave bones." 

Jensen looked back as he hurried towards the lake. The swarm had multiplied exponentially, and he cursed. Behind them was now a semi-opaque cloud of tiny winged people with pointed teeth and they all held sharp barbed spears in their clawed hands. Their pinprick eyes shone golden even in the daylight, like hundreds of little LEDs, which gave the whirling mass an eerie glow. 

"Lake," he yelled to Alona, as she ran to follow Kim towards the small body of water. It was probably closer to a pond than a lake, but it didn't matter. It was cold and wet. 

"Get her home," Jensen yelled to Kim as she reached the edge of the water. "I'll lead them off." 

Without waiting for Kim's acknowledgement, which would probably be a string of curses, Jensen changed direction. He heard the splash of Alona entering the lake, following Kim's lead and immersing herself in the water. The relief of knowing they would be safe made his steps lighter and gave him a renewed burst of energy as he first followed the shore and then headed deeper into the forest. 

Fairies hunted by heat signatures, so once Kim and Alona had immersed themselves in the cool water, they would effectively be camouflaged until their skin temperature got back to normal. Which left only Jensen for the fairies to follow. With no one to lead them off, the creatures would hover indefinitely in the area until they caught another hunt. Hopefully he could lead them far enough away that Kim and Alona could reach the safety of the houses. Kim would let the others know about the dangers and tell them how to drive them off. It was the first he had seen them in this area, and from Alona's reaction, it seemed unlikely that they had been encountered before. The damn things were spreading. 

These were not storybook fairies: the woodsy, harp-playing, dancing, sparkly tinkerbells. But their group hadn't come up with a better name the first time he and Kim had encountered a swarm. They'd been travelling with others, then, and half of their number had been eaten to bloody bones before anyone knew what was happening. 

As he ran full-tilt away from the others, Jensen felt a scratch from a fairy claw, and he slapped his hand to his neck. A little body crushed under his hand and he brushed it off. He didn't bother to see if it was dead: there was no time—this one, probably a scout, wouldn't have strayed far from the others. The sound of the hunting swarm, like dozens of failing, squeaky brakes, got progressively louder. He ditched his pack, to buy him time, and glanced back to see that the swarm had blanketed the straps and the back, which were was still warm from his body heat. After a few jabs at it with little bone and nettle spears, they would move away, all the more riled by the deception, and re-coalesce to follow Jensen. 

Jensen's hopes were raised when the ground became wetter and his feet skidded in the mud. There! As soon as he spotted it, Jensen dove into the foot-deep, boggy area of mud on the forest floor. He rolled around until every inch of him was covered in cold mud, and he sank down as far as he could go. He held his breath as the swarm passed near and could feel the sound vibrations. Jensen stayed in the mud, making a slow roll from time to time to refresh his mud covering, even when everything had turned quiet. Cold, trembling, he waited, and just as he wondered whether it was safe to get up, he heard them again. They'd waited, patient, deadly, until a squirrel caught their attention. As they moved off, he stood up and tried to wipe off some of the thick mud that covered him. 

His bandages were filthy. And after having just recovered from the infection, he couldn't take a chance. He made his way back to his backpack and dug out his canteen, and, after fumbling open the bandages with cold-clumsy fingers, he used the water to rise away most of the dirt. Sitting on a fallen tree, he quietly rewrapped it as best he could. As he tucked in the end, he heard something moving upwind of him and he quickly slipped low behind a tree, reached to grasp his weapon, and peeked up to evaluate the new threat. 

Instead of a monster, a stone's throw away he saw the brown rump of a grazing deer. He smiled and aimed. Something must have alerted the deer, because Jensen saw the flash of its tail, easily seen through the obscuring bushes. As the deer bounded away, Jensen let loose his bolt. It hit the haunch and stuck. Fuck. His shoulder was messing up his aim. It should have been an easy kill, and instead he might be trailing it indefinitely through the brush. He sighed, and set off to follow it. 

Jensen had found some drops of blood but was taken aback to see a bloody handprint. He froze in his tracks, staring at it. There had been no one else there; he was sure of it. A couple feet away lay his arrow. Jensen picked it up and noted the depth of penetration and the smear of fingerprints along the shaft. There was no way this had fallen out on its own. Shit. 

Neither Kim nor Alona's group was the first survivor he had come across in his wanderings. And with their relative hospitality and openness with strangers, they were the outliers. Someone else out here, hunting, armed . . . not good. Jensen's eyes narrowed and his lip curled. They'd poached his kill. 

The thief must have been having trouble under the weight of the buck, judging by the way he appeared to have stumbled into vegetation. After a short time, he heard noise in the distance. Freezing, silent, he heard it, the crunch and stumble of someone under too heavy a load. This was his kill. He readied his crossbow and loosened his knife. 

He crept closer and saw him, the shirtless man, leaning against a tree. The man's head was down, his shoulders drooped, and his sides heaved. One arm had reached back to hold onto the deer. Jensen blinked and looked again. Something seemed off, but he couldn't tell what it was from this angle. He crept closer, sliding between branches and ducking behind trees until he was close enough to see clearer. 

The first thing he saw was Dean. 

No, not Dean, his brain supplied, once it had recovered from its crash. The features were similar to his dead lover's: delicate slanted eyes, high cheekbones, strong line of his nose, towering height. It was the differences, though, that allowed Jensen to shunt away the memories, so they were no longer front and center. This man was older, the set of the jaw was different, his features were sharper, his shoulders were broader, and his hair was darker. The man was muscular and trim, where Dean had been a gawky beanpole even into his twenties. 

Jensen saw the man's face pinch in pain as he twisted to press his hand against Jensen's deer. Wait. That wasn't right. Jensen's mouth dropped. The man's torso was fused to the deer's body and . . . holy shit! A centaur. 

And as he watched, it brought its very human hand to the sheath that hung from its belt and withdrew a knife. Continuing to scan the area, it bent down and deftly plucked some kind of weed, which it then put in its mouth. After a moment of chewing, it spit the plant out into its hand. It seemed to whisper something into its hands, and then pressed the masticated clump over its wound. And then it bent to pull out another handful of weeds. 

Tucked in behind a tree, Jensen continued to stare through the branches. It stood now, sooner than should be possible, without any trace of the weakness Jensen had seen. 

Jensen turned his back to the tree tensed his arm to aim the crossbow, but hesitated. It looked human. He steeled his resolve. Monster. The centaur started, and with a brisk, darting motion, it brought its head up to listen. 

Jensen brought up his weapon and stepped out from behind the bushes. Its eyes widened as it sprung away, but Jensen didn't shoot. He stood frozen as it fled. The deer centaur's eyes, wide with panic, had brought back Dean's final moments in vivid, bloody detail. Jensen couldn't breathe; there wasn't enough oxygen in the whole world. 

A strangled cry snapped him out of it, and he blinked repeatedly as he regained his bearings. A growl and crash, a yell and roar: all from the direction the creature had disappeared. The drying mud on his skin was cool as he ran forward. He ignored the scrape of the branches as he passed. 

The deer centaur was sprawled on the ground in an awkward splay of limbs, it had lost its knife, and it held off a nightmarish quadruped monster that snapped at it with razor-sharp, pointed teeth. From the emaciated grey body to the knobby end of its front appendages stretched a leathery membrane. Its long, muscled back legs were folded on themselves in a way that reminded Jensen of a grasshopper, and they terminated in two large raptor's claws that dug into the ground as it pushed itself forward, teeth snapping back and forth, intent on taking a bite out of the centaur. 

The centaur was bleeding heavily from gashes in its hind quarters, and there was a partial teeth impression on its collarbone, as if it had only barely managed to avoid losing its jugular. 

From this angle Jensen could get both monsters with a single shot. He squeezed the trigger and listened to the thrum of the departing arrow. It was his last one. 

The arrow hit the grey nightmare in the head, left of center, penetrating deep into what might pass as its cheek. It let out an ear-piercing shriek and fell away from the deer centaur. The centaur scrambled to regain its footing as the bat-thing whirled to locate its attacker. It spotted Jensen just as Jensen reached back to reload only to remember this had been his last arrow. It didn't matter; the beast was on him before he could blink. 

It landed with force on his chest. Jensen saw the white blur of its teeth and he braced for the inevitable mauling. But the creature slumped forward, boneless, onto Jensen, enveloping him in an odour of rotten potato. Dead. Jensen rolled it off with a grunt. Standing above him, bleeding, bare-chested, and holding a large branch, was the deer centaur. 

They looked at each other and Jensen didn't move for his weapon, thought he did scramble back as best he could when the centaur took a couple shaky steps forward. The leg that had been gashed trembled and then gave out. 

* * *

Jensen didn't approach the centaur; he left it exactly where it had fallen. It didn't try to rise from its awkward sprawl—from that position, it wouldn't be able to get up fast enough to get away from Jensen, and he imagined it knew it—but it tucked its feet under itself, maintaining some semblance of dignity. Its wary eyes never left Jensen. 

"Okay," Jensen said. His voice was scratchy, and he grimaced, cleared his throat, and continued. "What are you? What was that?" 

No response. He didn't really expect one. And the confirmation comforted him. Would help him build needed distance for the time he inevitably had to kill it. He wasn't sure why he hadn't already. It wasn't human. 

He tracked its movements as it stretched out to snag some more of the weeds it had been chewing, and once again, it chewed them up and spit it out again to spread over the new gashes. The gashes had stopped bleeding, which was surprising, really, considering their depth. Jensen's hadn't. The tackle had loosened the bandages and the roughly semi-circular wound along his side, the one that had gotten infected, looked to have opened up again. It trickled blood down his side. Great. 

"Medicine." The word was strangely inflected, but recognisable, and Jensen realized that the creature had understood him perfectly fine. Jensen wanted to ask for an explanation—all sorts of explanations— but now was not the time. 

Jensen's head had shot up when the deer centaur spoke, and his hand twitched towards his knife, a movement that the centaur's eyes tracked. It ignored Jensen to look around, before it stretched out again and picked out another weed. It held it out to Jensen expectantly. 

Jensen waited, longer than would have been polite in human circles, before accepting it. The centaur made a chewing motion, and Jensen raised a brow in skepticism. It didn't talk, but repeated the motion and gestured for Jensen to copy it. 

"Oh, what the hell," Jensen muttered and stuck the stalk in his mouth and began to chew. It was bitter, disgusting, and when it began to burn a little, Jensen knew that he had been duped. It had poisoned him—and he deserved it, for being so trusting. He knew better. He spat it out into his hand. Jensen's nose flared in anger as he glared at the deer centaur, but he was taken aback by its open approval and encouragement. 

It nodded encouragement and mimed placing the chewed plant over Jensen's wound. Jensen's gaze fell on the creature's similarly tended injury, and he complied. It stung briefly and then the pain gradually fell away. 

It smiled and then struggled to its feet. It jerked its head to the side, a clear indication that Jensen should follow, and then gestured to the monster's grey carcass that lay nearby. 

"It will attract more," it said, and Jensen knew it was right. Something like that would attract a mess of nasty things, and he didn’t want to be around when they arrived. He looked for any landmarks, and knew that he was lost. He stood up. He was no longer the helpless office worker he once was; he could find his way back, he thought. But it would have to wait until morning. With the sun so low, it would be dark soon, and he would need a campfire to dissuade worse night-time predators than a few fairies and a . . . whatever the grey thing was. 

"That bat-thing—" 

"Not a bat," the centaur said. 

"You recognised it?" Jensen asked and the deer centaur nodded. 

Jensen frowned as it said something like "Ki'k'gl" but with a couple clicks and a guttural honk that Jensen doubted he could reproduce. He tried, to his strange companion's poorly hidden amusement, and then gave up. 

"Well, I'm just calling it a big-ass bat-thing," he muttered. The deer centaur gave him a small smile, then gave a full body shake and tossed his head with a little prance. Jensen took a step back, but after its little display it settled down again. 

"Follow," it said. "Away." Jensen watched it move away. It glanced back at him once, to see whether he was following. Its shrug and accompanying expression, when it saw that he hadn't moved, was so like Dean's when Jensen had done something stupid . . . he followed. 

Bird calls and insect buzzing filled the forest, along with the occasional cry or warble of something new—things that shouldn't belong, but now did. The deer centaur, however, said nothing. Silence never bothered Jensen, as Kim could attest—and, damn, he hoped she and the kid had got back to the commune okay— but he found himself, for the first time since Dean's sacrifice, needing conversation. The distance between them gradually diminished, and Jensen let it. 

"I'm Jensen," he said. His companion looked at him from the corner of its eyes and said nothing. "That's your cue," Jensen continued. "Do you have a name?" After he said it, it struck him that it was entirely possible that it didn't. 

"Jared," it said, and interspersed in the syllables was a trill and some kind of half-bellow, but Jensen was going to ignore those. 

"Jared," he repeated. He figured the extra embellishments might have been important when the deer centaur winced before nodding. 

"Are there more of you?" Jensen asked. 

"Yes." 

"Are we going there?" 

"No." He couldn't decipher the look Jared gave him. 

"Do you have a. . .family, or . . . herd?" Jensen asked. He could now sympathise with Kim's frustrated efforts to engage him in some sort of exchange. 

"No." Jared looked at him as though he were the strangest being he had ever seen. 

* * *

They mostly walked in silence as Jared picked a path through the woods. Jared seemed oblivious to his lack of clothing, and the nip of cold didn't bother him. Jensen couldn't stop staring at the creature's naked human back, at the play of muscles as he twisted to wind his way through the branches. Jared was exactly Jensen's type. 

Then Jensen's eyes would wander down, over Jared's lower torso where light-colored down gradually thickened into the brown of a deer hide, similar to the many that he'd field dressed. The healing wound on Jared's haunch—which he periodically recovered with chewed plant mash along the way—stood out to Jensen like an accusation of cannibalism. Except that Jared wasn't human, not really. The deer centaur seemed oblivious to Jensen's struggle with the dissonance. Jensen wondered if trusting Jared would be the decision that finally killed him, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to lump Jared in with the other creatures he had made it his mission to kill. 

"Thanks," Jensen said automatically, as Jared stretched out a muscled arm to hold back branches for Jensen. Their arms overlapped as Jensen reached across to take them. Jared's skin was warm from their mild exertion, sweaty, and not so different from Jensen's own. Jared said nothing, but his stare bored into Jensen, and Jensen felt the trail of Jared's fingers as he moved his arm away. The sensation lingered long after Jared had moved on ahead. 

Jensen hadn't had a lover since Dean. At first, the idea of anyone else had been abhorrent, and then, once he's been desensitized by the new realities of life, he hadn't been around people often. The few men they had met, who he might have hooked up with for a night of meaningless release, had only been interested in Kim. It had been a very long time, which is what Jensen told himself as he felt the quickening of desire. 

The sun had set before they found a suitable spot to rest. Moonlight glinted off the whites of Jared's eyes as they darted everywhere and he paused frequently to sniff the air with quick, jerky movements. Jensen had suggested a dozen places, all of which Jared had immediately dismissed, before Jared tilted his head and turned around to appraise this current location. He sniffed frequently as he picked his way in a cautious circle around the area before tentatively nodding his head. Apparently this would do. 

Jensen was still lost, but Jared seemed to know where he was. They made a small fire and sat close to it as the night-time chill settled in. Most things that hunted at night would avoid the bright light, even with the tantalizing smell of wounded prey. 

Jared had folded himself into a ball and immediately closed his eyes. After checking the fire and gathering a bit more wood, Jensen settled on the ground next to Jared, cradling his crossbow and facing outward so not to mess up his night vision. He had a single shot that he'd salvaged from the bat-creature. 

When Jensen had startled awake after drifting off, Jared bent close and whispered in his ear. 

"Nothing is out there," Jared said. His breath ghosted warm on Jensen's cheek and smelled of the mint leaves he had munched earlier. It sent a shiver down Jensen's spine. "I would know," Jared continued. "We are safe." The _for now_ was unspoken, but it was more reassurance than Jensen usually had in the wild, or would have, without Kim. Jared's unflappable demeanor—and enhanced senses— relaxed Jensen, and he soon found himself sagging against the centaur's warm back, lulled by Jared's breathing as the day caught up to him. He thought again about Kim settling in with Alona's people, and as he drifted off, alone in the forest with something other than human, he felt a bewildering sense of belonging. 

* * *

_Chased. Slipped. Pushed. Blood. Pain. Dean._

Jensen woke with a gasp from his disjointed nightmare to find Jared staring at him in concern. Jensen shivered as the light breeze cooled the sweat that covered him, cooled everywhere but where Jared's hard body pressed against him. Jensen trembled against Jared's warm skin as the adrenalin still coursed through him. The deer centaur curled round him even further, now that he was awake, and held Jensen to him with a large splayed hand against his chest, anchoring him. Protected. Safe. Jared's nose flared as he whuffed at Jensen's hair. Jensen looked up, and from this close Jensen could see all the differences, all the ways Jared was unlike Dean, except for the eyes, but even those lay further apart, seemed so much older, and stared more intently—and Jared's eyes were not terror-filled as he was torn apart in the culmination of all of Jensen's nightmares. It was a significant difference. Jared was very much alive. And right there. 

Jensen's kiss made the centaur tense, and Jensen immediately pulled away. 

Jensen opened his mouth to explain, and found nothing to say. Jared's bright hazel eyes—so close— blinked, and a small smile tugged the corners of Jared's mouth. The deer centaur's eyes grew mischievous and playful, and Jared surged forward, clasped Jensen to him with the strong, sure grip of his massive hands. He nipped at Jensen's open mouth before licking in. Jensen let escape a small noise of want as he brought his lips tight to Jared's. Jared's lips were warm and soft, and his face held not a trace of stubble, only a fine, nearly imperceptible down. While Jared might have been surprised by Jensen's unexpected advance, he now took control in a way that was nothing like Dean and that left Jensen boneless. His kisses were hard, insistent, demanding, and he tugged Jensen's bottom lip as they broke apart to breathe, both panting. 

Jensen watched as Jared's nimble tongue darted out to lick his lips, and then the centaur stood up. Jensen felt a flutter of trepidation as he saw Jared's cock lengthen and peek from its sheath along Jared's white furred underbelly. And lengthen some more. Jensen's breath caught. Not human, Jensen reminded himself, but the thought wasn't as shocking as it would have been this morning. But Jared shook himself and pranced away. His cock retracted into its sheath, and he stood still in the early morning light, studying Jensen. 

"Come. With me," Jared said, in his oddly inflected speech. 

"Where?" 

"Hunting," Jared said with a shrug, as if it didn't really matter. "Home." 

"I have to get back," Jensen stammered, and his voice was rough. He shifted his hips as his own cock strained at his tight pants, and he surreptitiously brought his hand down to reposition himself. He caught Jared's hot stare when he lifted his eyes. 

That stare was a challenge. "Do you?" Jared said. 

No, he didn't. Jensen said nothing. Kim would assume he was dead, or had left. Ultimately, he thought, they would have gone their separate ways anyway, since he wasn't planning to stay with those people—with any people. 

From the distance there came another cry, same as he had heard yesterday morning. Jensen frowned as stood up to stomp down the smouldering ashes from their fire. 

"Those bat-things from yesterday," Jensen began. 

"Ki'k'gl." 

"Yeah . . . well, there are more of them." 

"Yes." 

"What if they attack you again?" 

"I'll kill them again." Jared mimicked Jensen's pronunciation with surprising accuracy. Then he smiled, an invitation. 

Jensen thought of Kim, intent on settling into a community of humans that he no longer felt a part of. The world was upside-down. 

Jensen nodded. "I need to go back . . . first. Not to be seen," he added, to assuage Jared's sudden wary expression. "Just to make sure that my. . . friend is okay." He'd never thought of Kim as anything but his hunting companion, but he thought the term might apply. 

The flash of Jared's dimples might have been pleasure, but Jensen didn't know him well-enough to be sure. 

As he walked alongside Jared, it struck him that, for the first time since everything got fucked-up, he was no longer waiting for the end, but that he might have made a beginning. 

* * *

END


End file.
